dive beneath the solar surface

Hi, my name is Rekha. I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world, but today I'm going to take you on my most exciting journey: deep down beneath the surface of the Sun.

Under the surface of the Sun we'll find magical music. You may think that the Sun is calm, but actually it gets excited, agitated and shakes a lot - don't we all at times!

We can only see the surface of the Sun and its atmosphere. So how on Earth (literally) can we know what's inside the Sun? The clue is in all that shaking. By studying the way the Sun shakes, we can get a lot of information about the interior.

This picture summarises what we know so far about what the inside of the Sun is like.

Scientists can study the inside of our Earth by measuring earthquakes. I use the same idea to find out about the inside of the Sun.

This sort of study is called helioseismology and the scientists who do it are called helioseismologists.

We know that the Sun is a star and in its centre , or core, nuclear fusion releases energy. This energy is radiated through most of the Sun through the radiative zone. Just below the solar surface, the energy is carried by convection.